The Argument of Empires

by Jacob T. Helvey

  This must be what it’s like, Grith thought, when we fight normal men.

  Xisa gave a hard twist of her sword and Tain’s saber went flying from his hand, cartwheeling over Grith’s head to land a few feet short of the barrier. Antis and his men looked on with horror at how easily the two Delvers, who had defended their bridge against the hundreds of screaming warriors, had been defeated.

  In some insane act of desperation, Tain ripped the dagger from its sheath at his belt and lunged forward. Grith cursed his teacher for his stupidity, but moved in to help regardless. He skipped forward and gave a shout, anything that might distract Xisa. She ignored him even as his sword bit into the flesh of her back.

  She stepped forward and punched with her off hand, driving her fist into Tain’s chest. There was a snap as ribs cracked like kindling under the force of the impact. Tain stumbled backwards and dropped his dagger, clutching his ribs, a look of shock and pain on his face. With a single groan, he fell onto the bridge and curled into a ball around his shattered bones.

  Xisa twisted out of Grith’s reach, letting his sword carve a shallow wound across her back in the process. With Tain immobilized, the Cutaran turned her attention fully to Grith. There was a smile on her face, terrifying in its intensity, in its mania. “I told you to run!” she shouted. “You didn’t listen!”

  She turned her head towards the sky, bathing in the light of the late afternoon sun. “Give me a challenge, Earth and Sky! You told me I would face enemies equal in strength to my own! WHERE ARE THEY!?”

  Grith back towards the barrier. The woman didn’t seem to notice. Tears flowed down her cheeks as her eyes fell back on him. “Is this the best the Demon Hadan can muster? If so, then he is truly PATHETIC!”

  Grith didn’t answer. His back bumped against the barrier. Desperate for an advantage, he reached down his hand to grab Tain’s saber. Although he had held a practice version of the weapon dozens of times, he wasn’t prepared for the real thing. It was heavy and light in all the right places and had a hilt perfectly shaped for the grip of a hand. A far more elegant weapon than any he was used to. The edge was unmarred, even after hours of slicing through flesh and bone and deflecting off of bronze, wood, and heavy hide shields.

  He shifted his battered arming sword to his left hand and stood, holding Tain’s saber out in a defensive posture. Xisa moved forward slowly, taking each step across the bridge with a fencer’s precision. There was fire and death in her eyes in equal measure. Hadan’s army had begun to make contact with the Cutaran back line, only a few hundred paces away. It wouldn’t be long now before her people were pushed into the chasm.

  Grith wanted to scream it into the woman’s face, to tell her that she could surrender now and save her people from death. But no, he had seen the madness in her gaze when she had shouted at the sky, trying to solicit aid from strange spirits or gods that only she knew. He had listened to her ranting and raving, any illusion of control vanished, believing herself at the center of some great prophecy. A person like that could not be reasoned with. There was only one solution:

  Xisa had to die.

  Grith threw himself forward, falling so far into the Deepening as to make time shuddered. The world around him moved in imperceptible slowness, save for Xisa. She barreled forward, still a hair faster.

  He cursed himself. Even as his best, he was still too slow. He had to think of something, some trick he could use to defeat her. An idea entered his mind, a fucking stupid idea, but it would have to do.

  A dozen paces from the Cutaran, Grith fell into a slide, gritting his teeth as thick blood stuck to his shirt and trousers. As the slide brought him forward, he swung his left arm and let the arming sword fly from his fingers. It did one full spin through the air before it struck, sinking point first into Xisa’s belly.

  It wasn’t enough to stop her. The blade had only stuck in an inch or two after all, but it was enough to make her stumble. Grith yelled as he let the slide carry him to his feet. He slashed Xisa along the chest, from collarbone to waist, and spun past before she could counterattack.

  Grith could already feel the characteristic ache in his muscles. He had minutes of energy left, probably less. He needed to end this soon.

  Xisa turned towards him and pulled the arming sword from her abdomen. Blood wept from the pair of wounds on her torso, but not as much as he would have hoped for. She was still up, still walking, and seemingly unaffected.

  Grith bit his lip and looked over his shoulder. Despite the fighting to their rear, the archers along the chasm had yet to shoot a single arrow in his direction. They were waiting, waiting for their leader to finish him off personally.

  Xisa growled before taking a single long stride, bringing her into range for a cut with her sword. She swung, taking off three of the poles holding conch shells along the bridge’s edge in the process. The blade cut through the air just over Grith’s head, whipping at his hair in its passing. He kept low and stepped forward, slashing at Xisa leg and dodging the upward slice she gave him in return.

  He passed her and headed towards the barrier at full speed. When he reached the fortification, he leaped, landing on top of the stones as gracefully as he could. Antis and his men still stood dutifully, their faces pale and filled with fear, but still… at least they hadn’t run.

  “Get back to the towers!” Grith commanded, his voice strangely slow in the Deepening. Antis shook his head and held up a blood soaked dagger.

  “We got your back, boy!” he replied.

  Grith didn’t have time to respond as something slammed into him. He careened over the barrier to land some ten paces behind Antis and his men. His vision swam with stars, but as he rose, he could tell nothing was broken. He scooped up Tain’s sword and turned, still a little dazed from the impact. Two of Antis’ men lay dead, one with his viscera spilled across the surface of the bridge. There was only half of the other left, but where the other part had gone, Grith could only guess

  Antis still held his ground, daggers in hand, giving a defiant roar as Xisa raised her blade. Grith’s body surged with power. He wouldn’t let this man, who had stood with him against the impossible, against the tide of Cutarans, die like this. Antis might have come close to murdering him for the color of his hair, but he had already saved Grith twice. Who would he be if he didn’t return the favor?

  Grith ran, covering the space between he and Xisa in less than a second, and fell to his knees, shielding Antis, just as the chieftain’s sword came down. He lifted Tain’s saber, one hand on the hilt, the other on the back of the blade to provide support. He gave a short prayer to his ancestors, to any Spirits or gods that might be watching, even Tirrak. In his current position, he couldn’t see in what direction he was blocking. He was totally blind. At least if he missed, it would be his own damn skull Xisa’s sword went through, instead of Antis’.

  Bronze met steel in a crash like the rending of the world. The bones in Grith’s arms bent until he thought they might break, but he held. Spirits, he held! He gritted his teeth and pushed Xisa’ sword aside. Rising to his feet, he could see now that he was only a foot or so from her, so close that he could smell her sweat, feel the roaring heat coming off her skin. He tried to slice across her chest and disengage, but she was so much faster. She grabbed his sword arm with her off hand, arresting his movement, and slashed down.

  Blinding pain shot through Grith’s body as her blade bit into his collarbone. He gasped as the razored edge halted just above his breast, and looked down, afraid of the ruin he might find. It was a shallow slash, not delivered with much power, but still… he hadn’t experienced such pain since he had been shot through the leg back in Erno.

  His reflex was to draw back, but he knew that in doing so, he would be opening himself up for a killing blow, delivered with the woman’s full strength. Instead, he wrapped his left hand around the hilt of Xisa sword and held. The Cutaran didn’t try to get free a
s he would have expected. Instead she began to push…

  It was only too late that Grith realized his mistake. For the second time today, a Cutaran was trying to throw him from the fucking bridge!

  He tried to find purchase with his feet, somewhere where he could dig in, but the boards beneath him were smooth and slick with fresh blood. And where his strength was fleeing him with every moment, Xisa’s reserve seemed to be a bottomless pit.

  She pushed until his heels reached the edge of the bridge. He could feel one of the wooden poles against his back. It could hold his weight easily enough, but not with addition of a fully grown Cutaran. “Antis!” Grith shouted, hoping the old soldier had the presence to hear. “Help!”

  He held on for dear life, his fingernails digging into Xisa’s skin, gritting his teeth as he felt his weight begin to topple over the side. For a moment he was weightless, held above the chasm, so deep that it might as well have been a black maw from which nothing could escape. Then, Xisa’s grip loosened. Grith looked up to see she had turned, her attention drawn by… something else—he didn’t know. As she twisted, Grith could see there was a dagger sticking from her back, one of Antis’ thick rondels, by the look of it. It had been shallowly placed—an Enforcer’s skin was like iron after all—but was enough to distract the Delver

  Grith pushed off the pole and came to his feet on the bridge once again. Xisa had grabbed Antis and was carrying him to the opposite edge, cursing loudly in her native tongue. Grith glanced about for anything he could use to stop her. His saber had proved to be as ineffective as his bow, which now lay next to his… broken spear.

  Barely giving himself time to think, Grith ran forward on legs that felt made from jelly and scooped up the weapon. With a good portion of the haft gone, it was only a little over three feet in length. But crucially, its blade was still sharp and stiff. If anything could pierce a Delver’s skin it would be this. Grith shifted Tain’s saber to his off hand and approached Xisa warily.

  She had yet to throw Antis. He still struggled against her hand, wrapped firmly around his throat, but what was a man when compared to this beast of a woman. No, he couldn’t stand against her strength.

  “Hey!” Grith yelled. It sounded foolish, but it was the only way he could think to get her attention. “Your fight’s with me!”

  Xisa turned on him, all heat gone from her expression. Her dark eyes were cold, collected, the absence of emotion seeming to form a cloud of frost around her. She threw Antis to the side—luckily not off the bridge—and leveled the point of her sword at Grith’s chest, either in challenge or some unorthodox fighting stance. He expected her to speak, to spout out one more mad pronouncement. She didn’t say a word, didn’t make so much as a sound.

  She stepped forward and slashed upward, towards Grith’s chest, just as he thrust with his spear. Time shuddered around them as each tried to get an advantage over the other in the space between heartbeats. Xisa hit slightly earlier, her sword crashing into Grith’s side. He used the last of his energy, the last of shred of strength in a desperate attempt to lessen the damage of the blow. He could feel the bronze blade scrape against his ribs, peeling back layers of skin, fat, and muscle. He screamed, the pain hot and acute even in the Deepening.

  He had to concentrate. He couldn’t afford to miss. He shoved down his agony and guided the spear into Xisa stomach, just below her ribcage. As the point pierced, he pushed upward, driving the leaf-bladed head into what he guessed was her lung. Somehow, the point of his father’s spear pierced her skin where all other weapons had failed. Grith could look up and for the first time to see true pain on Xisa’s face.

  He had hurt her, and badly.

  Xisa’s sword stopped just under Grith’s arm. He didn’t want to look, didn’t want to see the damage the weapon had cause on its terrible passage across his ribs. He lifted the arm. Either by a miracle or some quirk of physiology, he could still move the limb. He glanced to Xisa and then back at Tain’s saber. It was time to end this, now, while he was still strong enough.

  He brought the sword around, gasping at the grinding pain as his muscles worked around sharp bronze. Xisa made no move to try and dodge or otherwise extricate herself. She growled something in her own language, a challenge perhaps. There was no fear in her voice. She didn’t expect his sword to do so much as leave a mark.

  Grith let out a single pained breath and cut, snapping the blade into Xisa neck and drawing the edge across skin. Xisa’s cold anger turned to shock as the blade bit deep into her flesh, parting the tissue and cutting the veins and arteries beneath. Blood poured from the Delver’s throat and down her bare chest. She dropped her sword, letting it fall from the wound she had put in Grith’s side. It bounced off the boards with a clatter and tumbled into the chasm below.

  She stumbled back, taking Grith’s father’s spear with her. He thought about trying to retrieve the weapon, but… it was broken, and as his father had said so many times, it was just a spear—just a weapon. It had done its job, fulfilled its purpose.

  Xisa didn’t grasp at her neck, didn’t try to impotently staunch the flow of blood. She knew she was dying, and accepted it. Grith could respect her for that at least. As her foot found the edge of the bridge, her cold eyes rose slowly, fixed on his own. That stare, it spoke of respect, and perhaps even of admiration.

  Disdain and pride made an uncomfortable mix in Grith’s stomach as he watched Xisa topple off the bridge and into the Sikara Divide.

  In a daze, Grith turned to watch the Cutarans throw up their hands in surrender. Seeing their leader fall had taken the last of the fight out of them, it seemed. He smiled weakly.

  He had just won the Battle of the Sikara Divide.

  Already writing your own history? part of him asked.

  Thoughts of fame pushed aside for the moment, Grith stumbled towards the barrier. Tain was still on the other side. He could barely make out the movement of his teacher’s chest through eyes filled with tears of pain, but it was there. Tain still lived.

  With the battle over, the Deepening began to collapse. A sudden tiredness took him. The last thing he could remember was falling, falling and never hitting the boards.

  Thirty-Four:

  Kareen

  Kareen galloped down the rise at full tilt, dodging corpses as she went. Blessed Tirrak, there were thousands of them. Corrossans and Cutarans were piled high, some along lines of battle, others in great mobs where formations had disintegrated into mad melee. The smell was already overpowering, the bodies quickly bloating and giving in to rot in the summer heat, but Kareen covered her nose and defiantly rode on, trying to ignore the stench.

  There were still thousands of Cutarans near the bridge. They had thrown their weapons down when Xisa had fallen, even though the pair of Delvers who had defended the bridge through most of the day had fallen with her. All fight had gone from them, and without a leader, they had been unable or unwilling to mount even one final assault.

  She didn’t know if those two brave men still lived. For the moment, her mind was absorbed with thoughts of Xisa. The dark skinned Fanalkiri had cut her throat. Kareen had seen it with her own two eyes, had watched her fall into the chasm. And yet still she was unsure. The woman had destroyed one of Hadan’s “Weapons” after all. Could she really be killed so easily, her life so abruptly ended?

  From his position near the Divide, Oranhur was directing the taking of prisoners, the tending of the wounded, and the retrieval of the Delvers who had made the victory possible. The man had taken to the role of administrator easily enough, acting more the part of the Archon—the Emperor’s deputy—than a general.

  Kareen rode past the soldiers near the chasm. They shuffled nervously, clearly uncomfortable guarding the Cutaran prisoners. There were already reports of violence. Impromptu torture and even executions were common after a battle, Oranhur had told her. Many of the men would have lost friends. They would want revenge
, satisfaction they weren’t able to receive during the battle itself. They wouldn’t be in their right minds for days yet. Many never would.

  Kareen found the bridge open before her. Her horse was reluctant to step onto the boards, at first. It had never had the training most warhorses received, allowing them to tolerate blood and gore and the sight of bodies. But with enough carousing, the beast finally took its first steps onto the viscera strewn surface.

  She rode towards the spot where Xisa had fallen, just behind a stone barrier that had been erected at the bridge’s center. The two Delvers had fought here, supposedly fending off hundreds of Cutarans, although she hadn’t seen the worst of the fighting. They were gone now, spirited off to the Emperor’s command tent, where even now they were being tended to by surgeons. Even with the healing properties of Delvers, their survival was no sure thing.

  She directed her mount to where the pair had mounted their defense, and seeing that there was no way around, dismounted. She lifted her dress’ hem and tried her best to avoid the splattered blood and gore that seemed to cover every nook and cranny of the boards beneath her feet. She clambered up the stone, managing to find clean hand holds between the cobbles, and levered herself up so that she stood tall atop the meager fortification, surveying the land around her. The extra five feet or so of height gave her a view of the Divide for miles around. From here, she could see the true carnage of Hadan and Xisa’s struggle—thousands of bodies, and thousands more wounded or captured. She could see the Emperor’s pavilion, high on the rise above, and Oranhur and his ever-present bodyguards, in amongst the prisoners. A camp of sorts had been formed on both sides of the bridge and at Kareen’s urging, the beginnings of fortifications were already being erected. She didn’t think they would be attacked, but Xisa was crafty. It wouldn’t surprise her at all to find the woman had planned contingencies from beyond the grave.